Free Republic

China issued a stern rebuke to the U.S., after House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) referred to the country's leader Xi Jinping, Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, and Iran as an "axis of evil." -snip- The speaker told reporters on Wednesday: "I believe Xi [Jinping] and Vladimir Putin and Iran really are an axis of evil. I think they are in coordination on this." He added he believes Putin would "continue marching through Europe" and even "have a showdown" with NATO ally like Poland if permitted. Liu told Newsweek that rhetoric like Johnson's threatens the state of U.S.-China relations. "We urge the...

A Chinese specialist on Russia has delivered a grim forecast for Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine: that it is doomed to fail. Peking University professor Feng Yujun is also cooling on the future of Beijing-Moscow relations, writing in a recent op-ed in The Economist that the two nations have diverging visions of the future of global affairs.

Taiwan has confirmed there are U.S. troops stationed on its islands in the Taiwan Strait on a permanent basis, including an island just over a mile off China's southeast coast. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in 2023 paved the way for their arrival to conduct training programs for troops on Taiwan's front line. China has vowed to someday annex democratic Taiwan, which it regards as a rogue province, despite the fact that the Chinese Communist Party government in Beijing has never ruled there. China has sharply increased military sorties and drills in and around the 90-mile-wide Taiwan Strait, prompting...